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When Nick Buoniconti walked off the pro football field for the final time in 1976, he got down on his hands and knees and kissed the turf at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
The future Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker had won two Super Bowls and had broken a lot of bones by then. By his own estimate, Buoniconti, who died this week at 78, absorbed more than a half million hits to the head during his playing days before and with the Miami Dolphins.
Still, he “thanked God that I’d never gotten seriously hurt,” Buoniconti told Sports Illustrated years later.